Thanks so much for the reviews! Really, really appreciate it. I'm working this toward a conclusion now... Quick recap since it's been awhile: Tobias and Tris have led a group of Divergent into hiding, as they prepare to explore beyond the city's walls. They've uncovered two spies in their group; Cara killed the first, Fernando, and they are about to interrogate the second. They're hoping she'll tell them where to find Uriah, who's been taken prisoner by Jeanine's remaining allies.
We meet briefly to divide up the immediate tasks. As Factionless, Laila and Inez know the city best, so they're going through the map to find a safe house. I thought Rat should join them, but he wants to help question Glory. Jose also insists on taking part, weak as he is.
"It was my job, Four," he explains, sitting up and swinging his feet to the floor gingerly. "I was part of the interrogation team."
"Well, look, I don't doubt your skill," I say, "just your stamina. We're going to need you to be well enough to move when this is done."
His face is grim. "I'll be ready."
I nod, if for no other reason than we don't have time for a debate.
Tris is working with the others on planning the rescue missions. I'm confident she'll come up with a good plan, and I'm equally confident it won't work. Basically, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but especially when you don't know much about your enemy.
And we don't know much.
Hopefully, we'll know a little more by the time we're done with Glory.
She's strapped to a cot in the clinic, electrodes pressed to her temples. Her face is already covered in a sheen of sweat, fists tightly clenched.
In the background, Cara is carefully packing up everything we aren't currently using, keeping her hands busy and her eyes averted.
"Is she ready?" I quietly ask Lou.
She nods slowly and gestures for me to follow her to the hall.
She doesn't speak right away, and I cross my arms impatiently. Every minute we delay is a minute closer to being caught, as far as I'm concerned.
"She's fighting it," Lou finally says, "very hard, indeed. But I am confident she will be compelled to tell you the truth. And because I have used some of the purple serum, we should be able to see on screen if there is a disparity between what she is saying and thinking. But Four," she calls, as I start to head back in,"you will only get about 20 minutes, once I inject the final dose. I won't be able to give her any more without killing her."
"Okay. Let's get started."
"Wait," Lou says, putting a hand on my arm. "I don't want to kill her. I don't want that to be who we are."
I purse my lips and stare at her. "What is it you want me to do, then?"
She holds up a syringe. "Behavior modification," she says quietly. "This is peace serum. Together with electric shocks to the frontal lobe of her brain, it should eliminate aggression from her personality. She would no longer be a threat to us."
"You can do that?" I say in disbelief. "And it's permanent?"
Lou nods, never breaking eye contact.
"So, let me make sure I understand you. You think it's more humane to give her brain damage."
To her credit, Lou does not look away.
I throw up my hands. "Fine," I snap. Then I take a deep breath. "I also need you to give her something that will knock her out for a couple of hours when we're done."
"Not a problem," she nods. "Though may I ask why? You look positively feral."
"She's going for a ride on the train. With her tracking device."
Once Lou gives Glory the last injection, the revelations start right away.
"What's your name?" Jose asks, in a voice that somehow manages to be both nonthreatening and commanding.
"Glory," she spits out.
"Your full name," Jose says calmly. She grits her teeth and clenches her jaw. We look at each other. If it's this hard to get her to say her name, how much are we really going to learn?
"What is your full, real name?" Jose says, slowly.
"Reyes," bursts out of her. "Glory Reyes."
I hear Cara gasp across the room.
"Reyes?" I say sharply. "As in Johanna Reyes?"
Jose gives me a mildly reproachful look. "What is your relationship to Johanna Reyes, former Amity leader?" He asks.
"She's my mother."
"Does she know you are part of the effort to eliminate the Divergent?"
"Yes."
"Is Johanna Reyes part of the effort to eliminate the Divergent?"
"Yes."
We all pause at that and look at each other.
"Glory," I say quietly, trying to copy Jose's tone and manner, "is Johanna the leader of the anti-Divergent group?"
She closes her eyes and shakes her head side to side, straining against the straps on her wrists. Jose repeats my question.
"Yes," Glory finally admits.
"She is the Chief?" I ask.
"She is the Chief," Glory confirms. I glance at Lou, who is monitoring the computer screen. She gives me a little nod.
"Rat," I say quietly.
"I'm on it," he says, rising to go tell the planning group.
"Come right back," I call after him.
"She is from the outside," I state to Glory.
"I don't know what you mean," Glory says coldly.
"Always a question," Jose murmurs.
"When did your mother leave the monitoring station and join Amity?"
They're all looking at me in surprise, since we haven't even had a chance to discuss this yet.
"About 25 years ago," Glory says.
"Tell us what she told you about the world she came from."
"Not much, other than it is a terrible place. There is not much left."
"What do you know about the experiment?" Jose asks, and I nod at him.
"It's not an experiment," she says contemptuously. "It's a safe haven from a corrupt and dangerous world."
Lou catches my eye and taps her watch warningly, holding up ten fingers.
"Is your mother still in contact with the outside world?" I ask.
"Why would she do that?" Glory scoffs, and Jose merely repeats the question.
"No," Glory says. "I don't know," she qualifies.
"Does your mother have a way of monitoring us now?" Cara asks. I hadn't realized she was standing next to me.
"No," Glory says. "Only if you're in one of the faction headquarters and some of the Factionless gathering spots."
Lou shakes her head at me.
"Is that the full truth, Glory?" I ask.
She's silent for a moment, lips pressed together.
"Where are the tracking devices you and Fernando carry? All of them," Cara adds.
Glory opens her eyes in surprise. "We both have them in our shoes and Fernando has one in his glasses."
"And your bracelet," Lou says, looking at the screen.
"Yes," she grits.
"You weren't wearing that before," comes a voice from the door - it's Tris, along with Rat. "Where did you get it and what can it do?"
"They gave it to me in Amity. They weren't able to get a clear enough signal with the other ones. This is more accurate."
Tris and I look at each other, and she promptly steps forward and slips the bracelet off Glory's arm. She reaches for the shoes, too, but I stop her and shake my head.
"Train," I say shortly, pointing at the bracelet. She nods and leaves as quickly as she came.
"Are Martin and Uriah dead?" I ask calmly.
"Martin is dead," she confirms. "Uriah is alive. We knew you'd come for him."
"Where is he?"
"Amity," Glory says. "He's in one of the empty grain silos." Lou shakes her had.
"Where is Uriah, Glory?" Jose repeats firmly.
She screams in frustration. "He's in Dauntless. They moved him to Dauntless."
Her instructions were to lure us to Amity, but she doesn't know much beyond that, nor does she know if Leo is alive. They didn't tell her any details, since she was coming back here.
"What were you doing when I found you?" I ask.
"I really was lost," she says sullenly. "I fell and twisted my ankle."
"And the black eye?"
"Uriah hit me," she sneers. "He was a little mad. 'I thought you cared about me,'" she says in a mocking voice. "Men are so easy to distract," she purrs, looking at me. "Did you like the way I felt in your arms, Tobias Eaton? The way my body felt against your chest?"
"Not especially," I note sourly.
"Did you stab Jeb?" Rat asks loudly from the doorway. I had forgotten he was still there.
"Yes," she says. "When you were busy with the other guy."
"You told them when and where we were moving?"
"Of course," she says calmly, but her voice is starting to sound sluggish and her eyes are glazed.
"Tell us all the names you know of people who are part of Johanna's anti-Divergent group," Cara demands, leaning over a piece of paper in front of her.
While they are writing down the names, I approach Lou.
"Change of plan," I whisper. "She's coming with us to the safe house. You can give her the other shot if you want, though."
"What about the shoes?" Lou asks, brow wrinkling. "They'll know where we are."
"Not well enough to find us," I note. "And we're not going to stay long, anyway. Once we find Uriah, we're leaving."
"Then why?"
"I want Johanna to know we have her."
A short while later, we are meeting for the last time before we move. Tris slips in, along with the new Erudite guy.
"Mission accomplished?" I ask, and she nods.
"We put the bracelet with Fernando on the train, That way, they'll get the full set of signals and think that's where we're all moving. It should take them a little while to catch up to it."
"Good thinking. Inez, Laila?"
Inez holds up the map, and Laila starts to explain where the safe house is.
"Do you think that's wise?" Lou interrupts. "Telling all of us? What if the rescue mission is captured?"
Inez shrugs. "It's a chance we'll have to take."
"We think this location has good sightlines," Laila adds, "and we know there are tunnels nearby. They connect to the ones the Factionless use, but they're too far away, too indirect, and have to much debris in them. It's hard to get anywhere fast, if you're coming from Factionless, so they're never used. But if we need an escape, it'll do. How about if we don't tell you all where they are or where they go? Will that make you feel better, Lou?" Lou nods.
"That's pretty far from the tracks," Tris says doubtfully, looking at the map.
"Yeah," Inez agrees. "That's on purpose. They won't think we'll want to be that far from transportation - they don't know we have the carts."
"What if there's no electricity?" Cara asks.
"The carts can offboard power," I note. "Not a lot, but enough to run a few computers."
"You think you can find this?" Laila asks me, pointing at the map.
"Yeah," I say.
"Who's going with you?"
"Rat, Tris, and..." I look at the big Erudite guy and realize I don't know his name.
"Gordon," he supplies.
"And Gordon," I nod. "We're going to carry Jeb with us and take him to the hospital in Dauntless. They'll be able to help him there. If we have to, we can leave him - we have people we can trust there."
"I'm coming, too," Cara says defiantly.
I start to tell her it's too dangerous and she's too much of a target, but Tris cuts me off before I can really say anything.
"I have something very important I need you to do," she says quietly. "We can't go outside the wall without it."
Unsure of what she's talking about, I clear my throat and tell everyone to get moving.
Tris motions to me to follow her and Cara into one of the side rooms. As soon as the door closes behind us, she unslings her pack from her back and takes out Bruce's diary and a small black box.
"You still have his ID?" she asks.
I nod and pull it out.
"Cara," she says, "when we were in the monitoring station, we found a corpse. We know his name was Brice Parsons, because he was wearing this badge." I hand it to Cara. "I also found his diary, and a small computer, both hidden under his mattress."
"We don't know for sure," she continues, "but I'm guessing Johanna killed him. I read some of the diary, and he talked about getting a new partner, about six months before the entries stop. He calls her Jana. At first, everything was great, and they actually became lovers." She rolls her eyes. "I would not recommend reading those entries. But towards the end, he worries that she's become increasingly paranoid and erratic, and he's scared of her. There's a lot more useful information, including a page of codes - it's how we got out of the monitoring station. We figured out which code was for the door and used the badge."
She holds up the computer now. "This device looks as though it has a slot for the badge, too. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I feel certain there's going to be things in there we need to know. And here," she says, handing over some folders. "These are files Tobias found. I haven't looked at them closely yet, but they appear to be about other experiments, like ours."
"Who knows?" she says shortly.
"Just the three of us and Inez, though she doesn't know the details I just told you."
Cara nods, her eyes downcast. "Okay," she says. "Just find him, will you?"
"We'll bring him back with us," I promise.
She looks up and smiles sadly at that, putting Bruce's things in her own backpack. We rejoin the rest of the group, and everyone just stands there awkwardly for a moment.
"Well, we should get going," I say. "Good luck everyone; we'll see you soon."
Inez hangs back briefly, turning to look at me. We make eye contact, and she gives me one of those lopsided smiles. I smile back, and then she's gone.
